Adonais by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born 1792, son of a

wealthy owner of Sussex and grandson of a baron. As

scion of a wealthy family, intended to

continue his studies at the aristocratic college

Eton. In this area, they begin suffering

the poet future due to the clash between trends

and personal needs and values

environment in which it operates.

Inversely to what might appear, it was not

Eton a place where interest was cultivated by the

ideas. Quite the contrary, the model sought

character of young people before them education

bookish. Therefore, the passion for literature

Shelley was seen as an affectation. his comparison

Neros din´t cease to make white your

teasing, which made him react with violence

unsuspected be fragile in appearance. The

vehemently defending their claims -

true states of trance'd just made

Of llamárselo "Shelley, crazy. ''

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Adonais

I 

       I weep for Adonais—he is dead!
       Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears
       Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
       And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
       To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
       And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me
       Died Adonais; till the Future dares
       Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!" 

II 

       Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
       When thy Son lay, pierc'd by the shaft which flies
       In darkness? where was lorn Urania
       When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,
       'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise
       She sate, while one, with soft enamour'd breath,
       Rekindled all the fading melodies,
       With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
He had adorn'd and hid the coming bulk of Death. 

III 

       Oh, weep for Adonais—he is dead! 

       Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep! 

       Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed 

       Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep 

       Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep; 

       For he is gone, where all things wise and fair 

       Descend—oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 

       Will yet restore him to the vital air; 

Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair. 

IV 

       Most musical of mourners, weep again! 

       Lament anew, Urania! He died, 

       Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 

       Blind, old and lonely, when his country's pride, 

       The priest, the slave and the liberticide, 

       Trampled and mock'd with many a loathed rite 

       Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified, 

       Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite 

Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light. 

V 

       Most musical of mourners, weep anew! 

       Not all to that bright station dar'd to climb; 

       And happier they their happiness who knew, 

       Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 

       In which suns perish'd; others more sublime, 

       Struck by the envious wrath of man or god, 

       Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime; 

       And some yet live, treading the thorny road, 

Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode. 

VI 

       But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perish'd, 

       The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew, 

       Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherish'd, 

       And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew; 

       Most musical of mourners, weep anew! 

       Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last, 

       The bloom, whose petals nipp'd before they blew 

       Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste; 

The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast. 

VII 

       To that high Capital, where kingly Death 

       Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, 

       He came; and bought, with price of purest breath, 

       A grave among the eternal.—Come away! 

       Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 

       Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still 

       He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay; 

       Awake him not! surely he takes his fill 

Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 

VIII 

       He will awake no more, oh, never more! 

       Within the twilight chamber spreads apace 

       The shadow of white Death, and at the door 

       Invisible Corruption waits to trace 

       His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place; 

       The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 

       Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 

       So fair a prey, till darkness and the law 

Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. 

IX 

       Oh, weep for Adonais! The quick Dreams, 

       The passion-winged Ministers of thought, 

       Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 

       Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught 

       The love which was its music, wander not— 

       Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain, 

       But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot 

       Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, 

They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again. 

X 

       And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head, 

       And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries, 

       "Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead; 

       See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 

       Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 

       A tear some Dream has loosen'd from his brain." 

       Lost Angel of a ruin'd Paradise! 

       She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain 

She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 

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